We Want It All

This is a short story covering issues relating to greed, sacrifice and loss. It is particularly relevant to current issues surrounding the international banking crisis and the human cost of this catastrophe.

Submitted:Apr 14, 2013
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MARCH 2006: PALLION,
SUNDERLAND, TYNE AND WEAR.

The river made its way through
Pallion the way earth makes its way through a worm. A river where
mighty ships were once built with pride and where the sights and
sounds of heavy industry were once as prevalent and perpetual as
the brown, opaque meanderings of the Wear, the only constant in
an otherwise fickle urban landscape that some would mistakenly
call progress. With all of the industry now gone - its still
beating heart transplanted abroad by the bloody hands of
Thatchers political surgeons - the only remaining signs of
commercial enterprise were the small pockets of tenacious,
residential development which protruded from the now redundant
river banks like conspicuous plugs of artificial hair clinging
to an ageing scalp in the aftermath of a failed hair transplant.
But at least these sparse tufts of endeavour provided a
temporary surge of hope for the lucky members of the local work
force who had been fortunate enough to have found some form of
employment within them. This type of short contract building work
or the lottery win of a production line position at the Nissan
factory a few miles away were the only life rafts of opportunity
remaining in an increasingly disparate community languishing
anxiously in the doldrums of a cold, grey sea of benefits. The
fortunes of this once prosperous town had deteriorated rapidly in
the past few decades. Until the end of the 1970's it had once
been as easy here for a healthy fifteen year old lad to begin his
long working life as an apprentice as it had been to turn the
wheel of a heavily greased lathe or to light the first flame of a
welders blow torch; now, the only wheels that turned were those
of time - and at a stultifying pace at that - and the only flames
that were lit belonged to a cheap, throwaway lighter as it payed
homage to yet another illegally imported cigarette of dubious
quality.

Lizzie Robson had been born in
Pallion thirty two years before. She had lived there all of her
life, her twin five year old girls were born there, she had never
lived anywhere else and despite the somewhat bleak shadows cast
by a long lamented industrial past, this was the place where
everything made sense to her. This was her home. She lived in a
compact, two bedroom, red brick cottage in Cossack Terrace. She
had moved in five years before when her twin girls, Jeanie and
Jilly had been born. Her parents had lived in Victory Terrace,
three streets away and as a child this had been her home too,
until her parents had passed away in 1990 - her mother of cancer
aged only forty three and her father seven months later from a
heart attack aged only forty four.

Lizzie had been an only child, as
had both of her parents before her and this meant that all of the
love and attention from three generations past were now focussed
on her; "a beautiful bairn", full of love, full of life and
carrying within her soul all of the hopes and dreams of the
entire Robson family.

Lizzie was only sixteen years old -
stuck in that nether world between adolescence and adulthood -
when her parents died and she had been devastated by the loss.
They had been the twin pillars of love and support upon which her
entire existence had been built. Her paternal grand parents, both
in their seventies and who still lived at the opposite end of
Victory Terrace, took her in without pausing for breath and did
whatever they could to ease her pain. The local community also
rallied, as they always did at times like these and Lizzie was
able to finish her teenage years surrounded by people who loved
her, and this was enough, as it always is, to see her through.

She had first met James "Bungalow"
Butterfiled at school and then again many years later in a bar in
town. His eighties mullet had been replaced by a short, slick,
flick and his once pale, scrawny frame had now filled out in all
the right places. His arms were replete with tattoos, his skin
was excessively tanned and his torso was topped off with a skin
tight tee that made him look like an over inflated narcisist. He
had been nicknamed "Bungalow" for obvious reasons and Lizzie had
been fooled by his facade. They had embarked on a brief romantic
encounter the end result of which had been Lizzie's pregnancy and
the subsequent birth of her girls. The Bungalow turned out to be
a quitter, "more of a mobile home" Lizzie had mused, as he left
town rapidly, aided on his way by the steel toe cap of Lizzie's
grand father's boot. She was twenty seven years old and she was
ready to be a mother. It was not quite how she had expected it to
be, "but life rarely is" she thought to herself with a mixture of
sadness that her parents would not be around to see the birth of
their grand children and excitement at the impending adventures
of mother hood.

Four years after the birth of the
twins, Lizzie's beloved Granny passed away, aged ninety one; her
grand father had died the year before aged ninety. When her
Grandmother's will had been read out Lizzie was astonished to
find that she had been left the sum of twenty four thousand
pounds; her grandparents entire life savings. But that was not
all. Her Granny had also been an avid collector of pottery and
porcelain and nestled inconspicuously between the predictable
chintz of the Meissen and the more elegant designs of the
Moorcroft had been a sixteenth century Chinese urn which had
ultimately fetched in excess of twenty eight thousand pounds when
it was sold at auction in London. So now Lizzie had money. Not a
lot, but enough to set her thinking, enough to catalyse her
dreams of a better life for her and for her girls.

Lizzie was not aspirational by
nature but since her girls had been born she had been overwhelmed
by a maternal sense of ambition to do whatever she could to make
a more secure life for her children. This ambition had been
fuelled during the first few years of mother hood by endless
television shows about home makeovers, property development,
relocation programmes and other forms of relentless media
coverage reinforcing the idea that property ownership was now the
key to a happy, fulfilled existence; Lizzie was hooked.

Once her children were in nursery,
Lizzie began to look for a job and the property market seemed to
be the place to be, the place where all of the action was to be
found.

It seemed that entrepreneurs
accross the country were converting any old empty slum into over
priced apartments. She had no experience of working in the
property sector but her enthusiasm, energy and probably her good
looks had been sufficient to convince Jonny Slater, owner of
Wearside Developments, to take her on as a P.A. Lizzie loved her
job, especially when she was able to show potential buyers around
the latest properties being offered for sale, this was when she
really felt part of the game, part of the new property owning
zeitgeist that promised so much. This new sense of optimism for
the future gave Lizzie hope, hope that she would finally escape
the economic doldrums that had becalmed the city of Sunderland
for decades.

So now Lizzie had money, she had a
job and she had hope. This was a potent combination and one that
did not go un noticed by her boss.

"Lizzie, have you ever thought
about buying one of our properties?"

This was a light bulb moment for
Lizzie. Of course, it all made sense now. It was a win win
situation. She would finally start to live her dream and she
could also help the company that she worked for by taking one of
their properties off the books. Lizzie always like to help others
and if she could help herself at the same time, all the
better.

"I hadn't really Jonny, but now
that you mention it, aye, I think it sounds like a good
idea."

"Why aye pet". Jonny was rocking
now. "You know it makes sense. I can arrange for you to see one
of the mortgage brokers that we use at the bank, they'll sort you
out no problem. What about one of the new townhouses at Waterside
Park? I'll do you a good discount."

Lizzie was ecstatic. The thought of
living in a "Town House" conjured up grandiose images of a
fabulous lifestyle fit for the pages of Hello Magazine.

"When can I see one of
them?"

"Any time you like, here's the
keys." Said Jonny with a smile on his face that was about as
genuine as the mock Tudor facades of the houses he sold.

Saturdays were always busy days for
Lizzie. Most people viewed properties at the weekend and Lizzie
took the saturday shift whenever possible. Whenever she was at work
and the girls were not at school, Jillie and Jeanie simply went
next door to their aunty Violets. Violet wasn't their real aunty
but she had been apart of Lizzie's life for as long as she could
remember. Violet was married to Jimmy and Jimmy and Violet had been
best friends of Lizzie's parents for decades. They were both in
their sixties but despite the wrinkles and dowdy clothes their love
of life remained undiminished. Lizzie loved Jimmy, he was a wise
old fella. He read a lot of books, he knew a lot of long words. He
told Lizzie that he had never been to school, that he was "an
autodidactic". Lizzie had been to school but she didn't know what
that meant.

"A'reet Lizzie, you see the match
today?

"No Jimmy, I didn't. What was the
score like?"

"They lost, three two. They was two
nil up at half time, but this team, whey hinnie, they give away
more leads than a philanthropic pet shop owner."

"Ha ha. You know I try me best, but
football, most of it just goes over me head."

"Aye like most of the Sunderland
teams passes… Ya oot th'night?" Asked Jimmy.

No, not th'night. I'm looking at
colour schemes for the new house."

"What house is that pet?"

The one I'm going to buy."

Jimmy rolled his eyes. "Aye but
where like, which house?"

"I've put an offer in for one of
the houses in Waterside Park, our new development across the
river."

"Waterside Park eh? Posh over
there. Don't forget aboot us lot when your supping wine with them
yuppies on yer terrace will ya?"

"Ah Jimmy pet, there's nee yuppies
in Sunderland man and I'll never forget about you, how could I,
you still owe us twenty quid."

"Twenty quid eh? Put it on the tab
pet; there's plenty money round here, look at how much we
owe."

"Aye, your right there."

"Just be careful pet."

"How's that like Jimmy?"

"Well, just divvent over stretch
yersel, financially like."

"I'll not Jimmy, but just remember,
we're in a boom. The whole countries gannin property daft. If I
divvent get in now, I'll never get a foot on the ladder."

"Well, thats as maybe pet. But I've
seen it all before. Just remember that boom follows bust, follows
boom, follows bust; to paraphrase Herman Melville like."

"Herman who?"

"It doesn't matter pet. Just be
careful, don't always believe what you want to believe just cause
it suits your purpose at the time."

Lizzie smiled benevolently at her
friend. "Aye Jimmy, I'll bear that in mind."

Several weeks later on a bright sunny
morning Lizzie Robson was sitting on a bus reading a copy of the
Sun. Half way down page four was a story about the discovery of a
decomposed body of a child in the South of France, which,
according to the journalist was linked to a pan european epidemic
of satanic, child sacrifice potentially linked to several members
of the European aristocracy. She began to read the article, but the
idea of a child being murdered in such a horrible way was simply
too much for her to deal with; she was sorry of course for the
poor, unfortunate victim, but this had nothing to do with her and
her world and so she turned the page and read instead about the
exploits of a premiership footballer and a soap star, this was far
more appealing to her sensibilities, especially today, the day when
her mortgage would hopefully be approved and her fabulous new life
would really begin.

"Please sit down Ms Robson"

Lizzie sat and looked across the
desk at Mr Brian Armstrong, mortgage advisor at the Sunderland
branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland; thirty years old and
already inseparable from the corporate nipple of his employer. He
had been with the bank since he had left sunderland College
twelve years earlier with three, grade B, A levels, eked out of
the state educational system like a sub Saharan farmer harvesting
his grain in a drought. He had fought hard to win his place as a
trainee with the bank and his devotion to the company that had
nourished him ever since, was unflinching. To Brian Armstrong and
many more like him, the companies and organisations that employed
them had now superseded their families as the main focal point of
their lives; their bosses provided parental support and their
colleagues were the siblings with whom they rivalled.

Brian Armstrong smiled at his
customer. It made him look as if rigour mortice had set
in.

"So, Ms Robson, I'm pleased to
inform you that the bank has approved your mortgage application.
Now, let me see." He began to scan the documents on his desk.
"The purchase price of the property s £149,950. You're seeking to
borrow up to £101,685 which approximately equates to five times
your salary of £19,937. With the funds already deposited from
your late Grandmothers estate totalling £53, 872.21, you will be
in a position to proceed with your purchase as soon as the
solicitors can complete the legals."

Just looking at these figures, if
you borrow the full £101,685, you will be left with a surplus
of…….£5,607.21. Do you need to borrow the full amount?"

Lizzie looked nervous."Er, yes, if
I can." In her mind she was already on the beach with her girls.
They needed a holiday. This was the start of the good life,
indeed, a week in Sorrento would be the perfect beginning to La
Dolce Vita.

Brian Armstrong looked at his
client and the rigour mortice returned. "Of course. Of course. It
is, after all, your money now and the way property prices are
going, in five years time God knows how much your home will be
worth. I'd say take it all and enjoy it. We're glad to be able to
help you." He continued to shuffle through the paperwork in front
of him.

"So, you'e chosen an interest only
mortgage product…..your monthly repayments for the first three
years will be at the discounted APR of four point nine per cent,
this equates to £412.54 per month. After that the APR will change
to the Standard Variable Rate of six point seven five per cent.
Of course, if the base rate alters, your APR will alter
accordingly. Do you understand?"

Lizzie smiled. "Yes, I understand."
She did not.

"Ok, great. Well, we are glad to
have been able to help you Ms Robson. I'll wait to hear from your
solicitor in due course."

In reality, Brian Armstrong was
neither glad nor otherwise. He was simply doing as he had been
ordered by his bosses: "Lend as much as you can; fuck the risk.
We want to increase the Banks exposure to the residential
property market at all costs. Your instructions are simple, lend,
lend, lend and when you think you've lent enough, lend some
more!". These were the orders that he had been given; imparted by
the Bank through the incessant breast feeding of information to
all employees, without exception. He knew that people like Lizzie
Robson would be the first to struggle with repayments if the
economy took a turn for the worse but to be blunt, he just did
not give a shit.

Lizzie left the meeting and called
her boss in a state of euphoric anticipation.

"Jonny? That's it, all arranged.
When will the house be ready?"

"That's great Lizzie. It's ready
now. Move in as soon as the money comes through."

SUMMER SOLSTICE 2006; THE
FRENCH RIVIERA

He opened his eyes and for a split
second the instinctive recollections from a thousand previous
awakenings were sufficient to keep the horror at bay. For a cruel,
all too fleeting moment he was somewhere else; in another place,
with another life; a life of benevolence, shared with people who
loved him and whom he loved in return. But then - as reality
returned with its unremitting inevitability, as the intensity of
his physical pain attached its prowess to the surging swell of
terror in his mind and the scream that began as a desperate surge
in the depths of his lungs and then hurtled upwards, gathering
substance as it swarmed his vocal chords and was then brutally
subdued by the filthy, canvas gag that had been stuffed into his
mouth in haste and then secured remorselessly with duct tape - he
knew then, without any shadow of doubt, that he was going to die.
As this harrowing realisation dawned on the darkness of his mind,
he began to struggle against his destiny with a pitiful futility;
his eyes rolled frantically in their sockets as they desperately
searched for a way out, for an escape, but within the sombre
shadows of the room and the prostrate position of his predicament,
face down on the cold, hard stone, with limbs restrained without
hope, it was impossible for him to see anything beyond the prosaic,
uniformity of the stonework of the four walls that held him.

Fear, that was all there was now…
nothing but fear…every sinew in his body resonating terribly to its
frequency… every synapse in his brain malignantly illuminated by
it; fear… engulfing him completely like a tidal wave of ice cold
sweat. He could taste it. He could hear it, dripping its acrid,
toxic precipitation into his psyche like a sadistic psychopath
dripping acid into the open wounds of a helplessly bound victim.
This would have been too much for any man to endure, but for an
eight year old boy…

And yet, just a stones throw away, a
multitude of men and women, expensively and exquisitely clad in
the finest of fabrics, swooped and shimmered through the
voluminous, ornately carved arches of a magnificent double height
ballroom, replete with crystal chandeliers, candelabras, ornate
tapestries and gilt framed portraits and which for this evening at
least, had been floored with roll after roll of a sumptuous, blood
red carpet. In a raised minstrels gallery to the rear of the room,
a quintet of young, blithely attractive musicians of incredible
skill and dexterity offered up sublimely atmospheric renditions of
Prokofiev sonatas for the pleasure of all those present. And who
were they, these people present? They were the creme de la creme of
the European elite, gathered together in splendid conglomeration on
a balmy midsummers night in the South of France; more than two
hundred and fifty billionaires, aristocrats and minor Royalty and
interspersed amongst their number, a smattering of international
bankers and financiers, sucking on the money like remora fish
feeding on a predatory shiver of sharks. Apparently a shark can
smell blood from over a mile from its source; bankers can smell
money from anywhere in the world. Both move swiftly towards their
prey and strike without remorse or hesitation.

This was Chateau Helios, a sprawling
eighteenth century, rococo villa, conspicuously positioned high up
in the hills above Cannes. It was one of many opulent properties
owned by the Rothmans; the family of international bankers and
financiers and tonight it was gloriously lit up, some might say
illuminated, by a thousand flaming torches, each one casting a
thousand flickering shadows across the decadence of the setting,
adding a striking, visual profligacy to the collective
lasciviousness of the guests who seemed to be be both
simultaneously creating and feeding on, the dark, enigmatic magic
of the warm mediterranean night.

Away from the ballroom, in the maize
of ante rooms and boudoirs made available by the host, lines of
white powder were being consumed faster than they could be formed
and an army of hookers and gigolos were engaging in an unrestrained
frenzy of sexual abandon whilst beckoning to the guests to join
them. The voracity of the rich should never be under estimated and
the combination of cocaine and sex was proving impossible to resist
and as the high grade cocaine took immediate effect, some of
Europe's most recognisable women were being bent over a Louis XVth
chaise and fucked without mercy by a drug fuelled gigolo while
their equally eminent husbands looked on, grinning licentiously,
with white powder smeared across their faces and a ten thousand
euro a night hooker sucking wildly on their viagra assisted
erections.

Louis Rothman was the host for the
evening. Louis Rothman was a monster. He didn't look like a
monster, on the contrary, he had the appearance of a kindly, grey
haired uncle; the sort who appeared to exude benevolence and
generosity and then, when no one else was looking, slipped his hand
surreptitiously into the pants of his unsuspecting nieces and
nephews. At fifty eight years of age he was the oldest living
member of the Rothman dynasty, his father Nathan Rothman having
passed away the year before. He remained in good physical condition
despite the impossibly tenacious paunch around his waist and the
flaccidity of the skin under his rather weak jawline. But for a man
of such remarkable power and wealth there was in fact nothing very
remarkable about his rather conventional appearance and the only
suggestion of any adherence to any personal vanity was the
permanence of his deep, luxuriant sun tan and perhaps the overly
coiffed, slightly receding, lustrous grey quiff that flowed softly
back across his head like a delicate wave of quicksilver breaking
softly on occasion on to the gentle furrows of his forehead. This
veneer of benignly ageing geniality was further enhanced by a well
practiced smile which showed a perfectly formed set of ultra white
teeth, the glare of which which was usually sufficient to distract
the recipient from the cold, black slits that apparently passed for
eyes.

He moved through his Chateau with an
air of supreme control. As he worked the ballroom he was the
personification of charm; in the numerous boudoirs, where the
definition of debauchery was being tested to the limits, his mere
presence seemed to catalyse the protagonists into even more
outrageous acts of depravity. All the guests present were aware of
the "activities" on offer; some indulged, some did not, but all
were complicit in the over whelming sensation of wanton self
indulgence which, as the evening progressed, grew yet darker and
more malevolent by the hour.

Despite his own voracious desire for
cocaine and sex, Louis Rothman had so far managed to refrain from
any form of indulgence, preferring to keep his mind focussed on
what was for him and a select group of twelve disciples, the main
purpose of the nights activities. He knew the boy was down there,
trussed up like a Christmas turkey, and that was sufficient
motivation for him to keep his focus in tact.

At exactly eleven thirty pm, he felt
a small vibration in his breast pocket. He reached inside his
dinner jacket and pulled out his Blackberry. The alarm had been set
to give him enough time to prepare. He glanced at his diamond
encrusted Rolex - a gift from the previous president of the USA for
services rendered to the clandestine, financial machinations of
Wall Street - and felt his resolve crystallise yet further like one
of the numerous jewels that adorned its rather vulgar dial. He made
his way swiftly back to the ballroom and began to traverse its
opulent expanse in search of his cohorts, the six men and six women
who would be joining him imminently in the cellars below.

One by one he caught their attention,
a subtle nod to one followed by an imperceptible smile to the next
and within minutes all thirteen participants in the impending
ritual had made their surreptitious departure from the main throng
of guests and had congregated in a small, dimly lit, ante room
within a secluded section in the heart of the Chateau. Despite the
pervasive silence, the collective communication among the group
remained unhindered. They were bonded by their quietude and united
en masse in their purpose. Louis Rothman then produced an ornate,
silver candelabra and lit the three slender candles that it held
with a solid gold Dunhill lighter, deftly produced from somewhere
about his person. As he led the way down a narrow spiral of stairs
at the rear of the small chamber, the darkness that rose up from
the cellars below was palpable and provided a fitting corollary for
the combined malignancy of this assemblage of evil as it descended
into the bowels of the Chateau beneath them.

At the foot of the stairs was a heavy
wooden door, replete with ornately carved, occult symbolism. On the
wall to the left was a small electronic key pad. Louis Rothman
dextrously entered a series of numbers and then pushed gently on
the centre of the door. It swung open with ease, obviously assisted
by a state of the art locking mechanism. He stepped forward into
the darkness beyond, succeeded immediately by his followers.

Once inside, the heavy, ornate door
closed silently behind them and once again Louis Rothman led the
way, this time through a short, flagstoned corridor towards another
heavy set, ornately carved wooden door of similar design to the
first. This one however was unlocked and Louis Rothman opened it
swiftly, ushering his followers across the thresh hold. Inside, was
a large square cellar maybe twenty feet wide but almost fifty in
length and with another doorway, identical yet again to the others,
located in the far left hand corner of the room. As before, the
floor was flagged and the walls were constructed of large, oblong
blocks of stone which diminished in size as they rose up to meet
the vaulted ceilings that arced above them in four perfect
sections. Despite it's sepulchral design, there was no obvious
evidence of dampness or decay. On the contrary, the room was well
lit with numerous, yet subtle, electric wall lights and the air was
temperate and dry. Along the far side of the room a number of
wooden benches and hanging rails displayed a collection of crimson
coloured robes and matching velvet slippers. The thirteen
participants crossed the room in haste and immediately began to
undress.

A few moments later and they were
fully garbed in their conspicuous, scarlet attire, the luxurious
fabric of which, rippled sadistically over their naked bodies like
the blood red pelts of a thousand butchered minks languishing in
the eternal darkness of their slaughter. Louis Rothman then moved
across the room and punched in a sequence of numbers on a small
electronic key pad adjacent to the second, still unopened door.
Simultaneously, the lighting began to fade and a soft, rhythmic
chanting began to fill the room. He pushed the door softly and it
opened with ease. Above their heads, the musicians in the ballroom
announced the imminence of the midnight hour and the subsequent
zenith of the mid summer celebrations. In the boudoirs and ante
rooms throughout the chateau, the intensity of the cocaine fuelled
fucking seemed to reach a climatic peak and in the room adjacent to
the disciples, the eight year old boy, abducted to order less than
twenty four hours earlier, awaited his fate with a horrifying
resignation. Louis Rothman then stepped silently across the thresh
hold and a soft shard of light fell seductively across the bound,
naked flesh of the boy. He began to make his way around the
periphery of the chamber, lighting wall mounted candelabras as he
went. Within seconds the small room had been illuminated by the
warm, ochre flames of the candles and the disciples then took this
as their cue. Once inside, the disciples all disrobed swiftly,
discarding their cloaks in unison as they began to embrace one
another, indulging each other at random in blatant acts of sexual
fore play. Now that the room was illuminated, the young boy
realised that he was in fact lying not on a stone floor, but
rather, face up on a raised stone altar, his arms and legs tightly
bound with broad leather straps. The cortisol levels in his blood
stream were now so excessive that he had become tranquillised by
his fear and he simply lay trembling, awaiting his fate with a
completely detached sense of reality. Louis Rothman moved to the
rear of the room, out of sight of his intended victim and picked up
a black, ornately carved dagger from a small, wooden table; he ran
the under side of his thumb along the razor sharp blade and smiled
to himself as images of impending sacrifice flashed malevolently
through his mind. Without hesitation, Louis Rothman then stepped
forward towards the altar holding the dagger high above his head as
the writhing mass of now intertwined bodies that surrounded him
erupted in an orgy of sexual extravagance that seemed to meld the
flesh of those involved into a single, contorted entity and plunged
the dagger downwards, piercing the frantically beating heart of the
boy with such force that it all but disintegrated, sending an arc
of blood spurting violently from the wound in a scarlet rainbow of
death. As the sound of chanting resonated in crescendo with the
moans and groans of the sexually engrossed disciples, Louis Rothman
withdrew the knife allowing the blood to gush from the wound with a
grotesque inevitability , flowing down the pale skinned torso of
the boy and onto the altar where it was subsequently channelled
through a number of rivulets into a large golden chalice,
accurately positioned to catch the sacrificial fluids of the
victim. As the life force of the boy began to fade, the blood flow
from the wound also began to diminish and all around the room, the
sexually charged groans of the disciples filled the air in a
unanimous mass of orgasmic release, their collective, sexual frenzy
seemingly catalysed into an unbridled, unified peak by the violence
of the sacrifice they had just witnessed.

Louis Rothman then lifted the chalice
above his head and recanted the satanic oath - one he had been
taught as a child - pausing theatrically for effect wherever
necessary to deliver it's malicious intent with maximum impact; he
then drank greedily from the gilded vessel before passing it to the
nearest disciple who then followed his lead without hesitation.

Louis Rothman understood the power of
sacrifice, something most people did not. He had been initiated
into the satanic secrets of his family almost before he could read
or write, attending his first human sacrifice aged seven; he had
been well prepared for it by his father and he had not been afraid.
On the contrary he had understood, even at such a tender age, that
the power of sacrifice was integral to the continuing success of
his family in a world that was fundamentally weak and ready to be
exploited. While most seven year olds were being immersed in the
love of their parents, the soul of Louis Rothman was being drowned
in a sea of evil.

Less than an hour later Louis Rothman
was seated at his desk, high up in one of the towers of Chateau
Helios. He breathed deeply, closing his eyes for a moment as the
newly accrued power surged through his veins like the finest
cocaine. This was his drug, there was nothing better than the blood
of a pure child. He had abstained all evening while his guests had
indulged, now he was higher than any of them could ever imagine, he
was kissing the sky of unlimited expectation and nothing could hold
him now. He picked up his mobile phone and dialled a number with a
central London area code.

"Ben?"

"Yes."

"It's Louis. We're all done here,
what about you?"

"Yes Louis. We're all done here too.
It was a little messy, but we got there in the end."

"Good. You know as well as I do how
necessary it is to keep the blood flowing." He chuckled as he
spoke. It sounded like death. "It's just something that we need to
do if we're to keep tipping the balance in our favour."

"I know Louis, I know." Ben did not
sound so sure.

Louis Rothman continued,
unperturbed. "We've been sacrificing their kind for centuries." He
spat. "It's what they're bred for. They go to war when we tell them
to in the name of some ridiculously contrived cause, this is no
different. They're cattle, nothing more."

"Quite." Replied Ben, any hint of
remorse now purged from his voice.

"Anyway, let's move on. I've been
looking at the figures; we've been very successful Ben. We've
managed to convince the entire fucking world that investing in
property is, as they say "as safe as houses". We've been funding
all of those shitty TV shows and tacky little marketing campaigns
for the past ten years. It's all paid off, the whole fucking
world's gone property crazy. Now it's time to pull the fucking
plug." Louis Rothman spoke with the nonchalant tone of someone who
was ordering a pizza. "Ben, you know what to do next. All of that
debt; all of that toxic crap that we've been pushing into the sub
prime sess pool; all those tawdry little mortgages that we've been
stuffing down the throats of those fucking peasants for years; well
now it's time to call it all in, move it on, the whole stinking,
fucking caboodle. I want rid of it all. I want you to make like a
fucking alchemist Ben; I want you to turn that shit into gold. I
want you to convince every fucking derivatives buyer on the planet
that this is the best fucking deal that they will ever have the
privilege of getting involved in."

"I don't give a shit. Just do it… do
whatever it is you need to do; just do it. Package it up, spray it
with gold and sell it on. "

"Ok, ok. I'll do what I can. You know
Louis, in about two years time, when people realise what's gone on
here, the markets are gonna fucking implode."

"I know Ben. I know. That's exactly
what we want. Total financial collapse. Total fucking chaos. Hell
on earth… for some. Sheer fucking paradise for us. You know Ben,
we've been selling this shitty dream for years now, but you can
only sell a dream to people that are sleeping. Now it's time to
wake those fuckers up, it's time for those peasants to pay their
fucking bill… We've sold the dream to those that sleep and now it's
time to pay."

"Sounds like poetry to me Louis,
sheer fucking poetry."

JUNE 2009.
SUNDERLAND.

"So, Ms Robson, as you know, you
haven't paid your mortgage for the past six months. We…"

Lizzie interrupted. "Yes, but you
know that I lost my job last year when…"

Brian Armstrong interrupted in
return." We know Ms Robson and of course we are sorry about that
but when you took out your mortgage you made a commitment to the
bank to maintain your monthly repayments. Because you have failed
to make the necessary payments we have no alternative but to
reposess your home."

Lizzie sat in her chair, she was a
broken woman. Her dream had been shattered by the greed of people
that she had never met; by people that she had never even heard
of and by people that she had never imagined could ever effect
her, Lizzie Robson, a modest, single mother living a simple life
in Sunderland. She had been sold a dream and had ended up buying
into a nightmare and there was nothing, absolutely nothing that
she could do about it now. She had bought the property from her
previous employers three years earlier at the hight of the boom.
When the market crashed in the wake of the 2008 banking crisis,
The Wearside Development Co was one of the first to go to the
wall and with their demise came Lizzie's redundancy. She had
received three months pay for services rendered and dreams
expunged and that, as they say, was that.

Her mortgage payments , which had
been discounted until last month had just increased by over a
hundred pounds per month, despite the Bank of England base rate
being at a historical low of 0.5 per cent. Lizzie's mortgage
product analysis had not predicted this and she had signed up to
an agreement that in hindsight seemed incredulous in the
extreme.

"Why are you doing this?" Lizzie
asked in desperation. Tears streaming down her face.

"We have no choice Ms Robson, we
are simply doing our job. We are obviously very sorry that this
has happened but we really have no choice."

"What will you do with it, the
house?"

"We will probably be forced to sell
it and unfortunately, due to the rapid decrease in property
values, it will almost certainly be sold at auction at a
considerable loss."

"Well that makes no sense. Why sell
it for a loss. How will you get your money back if you make a
loss?"

"Well, unfortunately, any money
owing on the mortgage after the sale will have to be re paid by
you."

"So, let me get this straight,
you're going to take the house off me, sell it for a loss and
then come after me for the balance?"

"Yes Ms Robson, that's exactly what
we intend to do."

"You cunt."

JUNE 2009. CHATEAU HELIOS.
THE SOUTH OF FRANCE

"So, Louis, we did it."

"Yes Ben, we did. It's been a
successful year and it's getting closer and closer."

"What is Louis"

"Come on Ben, you know what we
want."

"What do you want Louis? You
already have all of the money you could ever spend, what else do
you want?"